The
Forgotten Spurgeon
by Iain Murray
Why
'The Forgotten Spurgeon?' is
an excellent question to begin this fine work by Iain
Murray. There are so many books by and about Spurgeon
that one does need to justify the existence of another
one. Chapter one begins by reminding us of the enormous
impact Spurgeon had on his time. By sheer numbers
Charles H.
Spurgeon dominated the Christian stage. Murray
reminds us that on an average Sunday there were over
10,000 people who attended services at the Metropolitan
Tabernacle. By 1899 over 100 million of Spurgeon's
sermons had been printed. All of this was long before
the word mega-church had even been coined.
This
book as a whole warns us not to camp on the external
successes of Spurgeon but instead to see what truly
made him timeless. Chapter One rightly points out
that Spurgeon was often disliked by Hyper-Calvinist
and Arminian alike. This dislike sprang from the fact
that Spurgeon was not a systematic theologian but
rather a biblical preacher. He preached the whole
counsel of God without fear of who that might offend.
Chapters
Two through Four focus on controversies that arose
during the early years of Spurgeon's preaching. Both
Hyper-Calvinist and Arminians had fallen into a disregard
for evangelism. The Hyper-Calvinists (following Dr.
Gill) felt the free offer of the gospel did damage
to the sovereignty of God. Many Arminians had slipped
into a liberalism that saw evangelism as outdated
and unneeded. Spurgeon saw both as dangerous and called
believers back to a balanced proclamation of the true
gospel.
Chapters
Six through Eight examines the controversy that arose
near the end of Spurgeon's ministry, The
Down-Grade. Spurgeon saw the movement toward liberalism
and away from the authority of Scripture as a result
of Arminianism going unchecked. As he did in the beginning,
Spurgeon stayed the course with Scripture regardless
of where that took him.
The
Forgotten Spurgeon should be read side by side with
Murray's later work Spurgeon
and Hyper-Calvinism. Together these books
give us a good doctrinal biography of the Prince of
Preachers.
The
Forgotten Preacher by Iain Murray (The Banner
of Truth Trust, 1966) paper, 254 pages.
|
. |
Examined
in this context,
Spurgeon is seen as no genial pulpiteer and humorist,
but a man of granite, who thundered out to his generation
the timeless truths of the Word of God. (p.
15)
Does
God love me because
I love Him? Does God love me because my faith is strong?
Why, then He must have loved me because of something
good in me, and that is not according to the gospel.
The gospel represents the Lord as loving the unworthy
and justifying the ungodly, and therefore I must cast
out of my mind the idea that divine love depends on
human conditions. (p.81)
The
time has come
for Christians to stir: The house is being robbed, its
very walls are being digged down, but the good people
who are in bed are too fond of the warmth, and too much
afraid of getting broken heads, to go downstairs and
meet the burglars ... Inspiration and speculation cannot
long abide in peace ... Decision is the virtue of the
hour. (p. 143)
Others
of more orthodox
persuasion were far too confused in their own minds
over the relationship between loyalty to denomination
and loyalty to Scripture, either to censure Spurgeon
or to agree with him. They were caught in a paralysis
of indecision and fell easy victims to a policy of expediency.
(p.1606)
|
